Railway car wall



1936- G. q. GLLPIN I 2,050,655

RAILWAY CAR WALL Filed June 8,. 1935 Patented Aug. 11, 1936 UNITEDSTATES RAILWAY CAR WALL Garth G. Gilpin, Riverside, Ill., assignor toUnion Metal Products Company, Chicago, 111., a corporation of DelawareApplication June 8, 1935, Serial No. 25,631

3 Claims.

The invention relates to railway freight cars and more particularly toside and end walls for open top railway cars, such as hopper and gondolacars, though the construction is adaptable for walls of house cars, suchas box, automobile and refrigerator cars. The construction is alsoadaptable for use as roofs, floors, hopper doors and side doors forrailway cars. A roof or a floor comes within the meaning of the termwall as used in the specification.

Railway freight cars are generally designed so that the side walls aregirders or trusses to carry part of the weight of the lading and the caritself to the body bolsters which transmit such load to the trucks. Suchside walls also retain the load in the car. It is desirable to make theinside horizontal width of the car as wide as possible to increase thecubical capacity of the car but the outside width of the car is limitedby tunnels and projections adjacent the track so it becomes imperativeto make the side wall as thin horizontally as possible consistent withstrength requirements.

Open top railway cars are frequently built with the vertical wallscomprising spaced apart upper and lower frame members connected atspaced intervals by vertical posts with panels filling the spacesbetween the posts and frame members, which construction forms a girderand retaining wall. It has been proposed to bulge the central parts ofthese panels outwardly to increase the cubical capacity of the car, suchas shown in the I-Iart Patent No. 1,623,591 of April 5, 1927.

An object of the invention is to provide a wall for a railway carcomprising a continuous lower chord and a plurality of wall sectionssecured to the lower chord having their vertical margins meeting andsecured together to form a continuous wall and to provide each of suchsections with a member adjacent its upper margin and to secure membersof the several sections together so as to provide a substantiallycontinuous upper chord. The lower chord of a railway car wall is securedto the bolster, end sill and other cross bearers of the underframe and,therefore, is difficult and expensive to remove from the car. Theseveral sections of my construction, that is, one or more of them, canbe easily removed and replaced for repairs and sections may be made andstocked in anticipation of repairs, and furthermore when making new carssuch sections may be made in quantities and shipped to place ofassemblage as required.

Another object is to provide an upper chord for a car wall having asubstantially horizontal part and a downwardly and outwardly inclinedpart extending from the inner margin of said horizontal part. Thehorizontal part provides strength in a horizontal direction and the di-5 agonally inclined part not only provides strength in a verticaldirection but also sheds the load when JG car is in an unloadingmachine.

Another object is 'to provide a wall composed largely of flat plates orsheets which are not 10 flanged or deformed but merely have their edgeswelded or otherwise secured to the chords and posts of the side wall.

In the drawing:

Fig. 1 shows part of a railway car incorporat- ]5 ing my inventionwherein the component parts are secured together by welding.

Fig. 2 shows a construction similar to Fig. 1 wherein the componentparts are secured together by riveting. 20

In the drawing the lower side chord 2 extends continuously through thewidth of several sections and preferably between the bolsters of thecar.

Spaced apart posts 6-8, the upper members liii 2, and the wall sheetsI4-l 6 are secured together to form a unit or section. A plurality ofsuch sections are secured to the lower chord 2, by welding, as shown inFig. 1, or by riveting, as shown in Fig. 2, and also the posts ofadjacent sections are secured together to form a continuous wall. Theupper members l0l2 are rigidly secured together at their meeting marginsto form a continuous upper chord. These members l6i2 are preferablywelded together.

The upper chord comprises a substantially horizontal part 23, an outerdepending flange 2i and a downwardly and outwardly inclined part 22extending from the inner margin of the horizontal part and preferablyalso a depending flange 23 extending from the lower part of the diagonalpart. Each post or stake 6 comprises a part 26 extending laterally ofthe car and a flange 21 extending longitudinally of the car. The postextends upwardly and is secured to the horizontal 45 portion If of theupper chord (28). The diagonal portion 22 of the upper chord extends andis secured to the part 26 of the post (29) The accompanying drawingillustrates the preferred form of the invention, though it is to be 50understood that the invention is not limited to the exact details ofconstruction shown and described, as it is obvious that variousmodifications thereof, within the scope of the claims, will occur topersons skilled in the art.

I claim:

1. A wall for a railway car comprising a continuous lower chord, aplurality of wall sections secured to said lower chord with theirvertical margins abutting and secured together to form a continuouswall, each of said sections having a member adjacent its upper margin,and means to secure said members together to form a continuous upperchord.

2. A wall for a railway car comprising a continuous lower chord, aplurality of wall sections secured to said lower chord, each of saidsections comprising spaced apart vertical posts, a member adjacent theupper margin of the section having a horizontal part and a downwardlyand outwardly inclined portion extending from the inner margin of thehorizontal part, and a wall sheet secured to the posts and the member,means to secure the posts of adjacent sections together, and means tosecure the members of adjacent sections together to form a continuousupper chord.

3. A wall for a railway car comprising a continuous lower chord, aplurality of wall sections secured to said lower chord, each of saidsections comprising spaced apart vertical posts, a member adjacent theupper margin of the section having a horizontal part and a downwardlyand outwardly inclined portion extending from the inner margin of thehorizontal part, and a fiat wall sheet secured to the posts and themember, means to secure the posts of adjacent sections together, andmeans to secure the members of adjacent sections together to form acontinuous upper chord.

GARTH G. GILPIN.

